Armed tribesmen in Philippines free 12 hostages

Gina Galdiano, the wife of Allan Galdiano, one of the sixteen people taken hostage by armed men Friday, talks to her husband at a makeshift command center at a remote area in Prosperidad township, Agusan Del Sur province, southern Philippines Sunday, April 3, 2011. Gunmen have taken hostage sixteen people, including teachers and school officials after graduation rites at a primary school Friday, demanding the release of an indigenous leader, who is in jail for a similar hostage-taking incident in December 2009 involving 79 residents to protest alleged Government inaction on his clan's ancestral land claim, Police said. (AP Photo/Froilan Gallardo)
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Gina Galdiano, the wife of Allan Galdiano, one of the sixteen people taken hostage by armed men Friday, talks to her husband at a makeshift command center at a remote area in Prosperidad township, Agusan Del Sur province, southern Philippines Sunday, April 3, 2011. Gunmen have taken hostage sixteen people, including teachers and school officials after graduation rites at a primary school Friday, demanding the release of an indigenous leader, who is in jail for a similar hostage-taking incident in December 2009 involving 79 residents to protest alleged Government inaction on his clan's ancestral land claim, Police said. (AP Photo/Froilan Gallardo)
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Children play at La Purisima Elementary School on Prosperidad township, Agusan Del Sur province, southern Philippines Saturday April 2, 2011, a day after gunmen took hostage sixteen people, including teachers and school officials after graduation rites, officials said. The gunmen demanded freedom for their fellow tribesmen who were jailed following an almost identical hostage-taking in the same town in 2009 by suspects wanted for murder and abductions, said regional police chief Reynaldo Rafar.(AP Photo)— AP

Children play at La Purisima Elementary School on Prosperidad township, Agusan Del Sur province, southern Philippines Saturday April 2, 2011, a day after gunmen took hostage sixteen people, including teachers and school officials after graduation rites, officials said. The gunmen demanded freedom for their fellow tribesmen who were jailed following an almost identical hostage-taking in the same town in 2009 by suspects wanted for murder and abductions, said regional police chief Reynaldo Rafar.(AP Photo)
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Ondo Perez, the indigenous leader whose release is demanded by an armed group, who took hostage sixteen people, Friday, is escorted to a makeshift command center Sunday, April 3, 2011 at the remote area in Prosperidad township, Agusan Del Sur province, southern Philippines. The armed group took hostage 16 people, including teachers and school officials after graduation rites at a primary school Friday, officials said and allegedly demanded the release of Perez, who is in jail for a similar hostage-taking incident in December 2009 involving 79 residents to protest alleged Government inaction on his clan's ancestral land claim. (AP Photo)— AP

Ondo Perez, the indigenous leader whose release is demanded by an armed group, who took hostage sixteen people, Friday, is escorted to a makeshift command center Sunday, April 3, 2011 at the remote area in Prosperidad township, Agusan Del Sur province, southern Philippines. The armed group took hostage 16 people, including teachers and school officials after graduation rites at a primary school Friday, officials said and allegedly demanded the release of Perez, who is in jail for a similar hostage-taking incident in December 2009 involving 79 residents to protest alleged Government inaction on his clan's ancestral land claim. (AP Photo)
/ AP

MANILA, Philippines 
Armed tribesmen Wednesday released 12 hostages they had been holding for six days in a jungle hide-out in the southern Philippines to demand the release of jailed relatives, police said.

Most of the hostages were grade school teachers who were seized by five Manobo tribesmen last Friday in a remote southern town in Agusan del Sur province on Mindanao Island.

The hostage-takers were demanding the release of tribal leader Jobert "Ondo" Perez, who was jailed with three other tribesmen for taking 79 people captive in the same place in 2009 over a long-running clan feud.

Perez was temporarily released earlier in the week to help end the standoff, and officials promised the gunmen they'd speed up the resolution of his case.

Police operations officer Joel Dolon Mendez said the gunmen abandoned the captives - 11 teachers and a 10-year-old girl - early Wednesday and then escaped. "The hostages walked to a safe area and were secured by our forces," he told The Associated Press by phone.

The hostages "all looked OK," said regional police chief Reynaldo Rafal. "They're haggard-looking, but they're all OK. I know one child was sick, but the child is OK."

The five hostage-takers fled and police were pursuing them, Mendez said.

The freed hostages were undergoing a medical checkup and debriefing, police said.

Last August, the hostage-taking of a busload of Hong Kong tourists in Manila ended in disaster with the death of eight of the captives. The kidnapper - a dismissed policeman who wanted his job back - was shot to death by police commandos.

In the southern Philippines, clan feuds, fueled by weak law enforcement in remote regions awash with illegal firearms, have often erupted into deadly clashes and ransom kidnappings. The violence underscores the complexity of security problems in the south, where troops have been battling Muslim and communist insurgents, along with al-Qaida-linked militants, for years.

In 2009, Jobert Perez and three others avoided arrest on murder charges and held 79 people hostage for four days. The hostages were freed after intervention by Manobo tribal elders, but Perez and his relatives were arrested, angering other clan members.

Rafal said the latest hostage crisis was prompted by the same clan feud involving Perez's family that caused the 2009 ordeal - a conflict over land that passes through a logging route.